


the night is bright

by orphan_account



Series: I do not know any other way of loving but this [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Marriage of Convenience, New Beginnings, Past Abuse, Psychological Trauma, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-29
Updated: 2013-05-29
Packaged: 2017-12-13 09:26:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/822710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Their wedding was a hasty affair, with plastic cutlery and fold-out chairs. </p><p>A year later, Stannis and Sansa live clockwork lives. The two move in separate rotations and routines. Stannis works as an internal auditor and Sansa as an elementary teacher's assistant, neither quite recovering from their pasts in Westeros's high society. They come together infrequently, for a meal or the briefest conversation about the weather, until a single late-night conversation changes everything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the night is bright

The night crawls under his skin sometimes, like an itch he can't quite scratch.

He's working late and files are strewn across his desk. No new insights or hidden loopholes have revealed themselves in the past hour, but Stannis persists. He rereads the same information and flips through the same invoices until his vision blurs. 

Stannis sits back in his chair and rubs his eyes. He squints at his battered wristwatch. It's ten thirty, and he can't focus.

When Stannis had begun working at the Bank of Dragonstone as an internal auditor, he'd been given a corner office with a window. He still remembers his first, fleeting thought - that he could have an office with a view and a job meriting it, that he'd left his past behind. 

Stannis can see the lights of Storm's End Shipping Company from his desk. The view doesn't bother him as much as the memory of that initial (pitiful) thought does.

Stannis is restless, glancing at the town outside his window more often than his audit paperwork.

The night is crisp and clear, revealing scattered clusters of stars high above the artificial lights of Westeros. His computer hums next to him and it's the only sound in the building aside from his own breathing. Stannis realizes he's reminiscing and, teeth grinding, forces himself to pick up another file. He wouldn't put it past Mace Tyrell to slip a hidden transaction or two into the month's docket, which is why Stannis needs to put in overtime to make sure Tyrell's treachery doesn't go unnoticed.

Stannis hates this job but he's determined to work the hardest, to be the best. Last week he overheard one coworker tell another that Stannis was a robot. He takes pride in that. Stannis is the best auditor in the branch and he'll keep that distinction even if it runs him to the ground.

A somewhat respected auditor is far better than a reviled brother, but right now he isn't acting like a respected auditor. Right now all Stannis can focus on is the night outside his window.

The shrill preset call tone of his cellphone startles Stannis out of his reminiscing. He glances at the call display and his gut clenches with residual worry. He answers, but before he can say anything a quiet voice asks, "Stannis? Are you still at the office?"

Sansa. He sighs and closes his eyes, berating himself for worrying.

"I just wanted to tell you it's quarter to eleven. I saved some leftovers for you."

His wife (calling her 'wife' sounds so strange, even after a year of marriage) doesn't sound accusatory. Sansa never sounds like she's angry at him for working late, and for some reason her quiet calm is worse than Selyse's passive-aggressive barbs. He could ignore Selyse, but Sansa gets under Stannis's skin and it bothers him.

"I just need to finish reading a few files," he tells her, shuffling the papers on his desk like it'll make the statement true.

He can hear something distant through the connection. The late-night news, perhaps. Stannis pictures Sansa, curled up on the loveseat in the living room, sipping on that jasmine tea she likes so much and watching the news. 

"I'll be home soon." He looks at the paperwork strewn across his desk and resists the urge to groan. The image of Sansa relaxing after a day working at the Westeros Elementary School won't leave him alone.

Sansa must sense his frustration, because she chuckles softly. "I'm sure whatever you're trying to puzzle out right now can wait. A well-rested accountant is always better than a tired one."

"You know I'm not an accountant anymore." It comes out sharper than he'd intended. "I'm an auditor, nothing more."

The following pause is awkward. He can hear Sansa exhale slowly. "Come home, please."

"Soon." He hangs up before she can try and convince him otherwise.

Stannis gives up all pretense of dedication or focus after that. He keeps looking up at the lights of Storm's End and replaying the conversation with Sansa in his mind. He knows he's far from a great husband.

Their marriage hadn't been an easy one. A few weeks before Stannis's marriage to Sansa, Selyse had left him and Shireen for a Wiccan priestess and a life in the wilds of Alabama. Selyse had left just days after the Lannister scandal had shamed the entire Baratheon family, and Selyse's divorce had only helped create a scapegoat out of Stannis. "Look at him," his family had muttered, "he's useless, look at what his wife did, who knows what he's done to ruin us, if he can't even control his wife -"

However uncomfortable the month leading to the marriage had been for Stannis, it had been far worse for his bride. 

Theirs had been a slapdash wedding with folded chairs and plastic cutlery. The old families seemed satisfied, cooing at the match, but Stannis knew he had married a broken woman. Sansa was twelve years younger than him but it was difficult to tell - her past had aged her beyond her years. 

Sansa had flinched whenever Stannis would make any sudden movements, and would whimper and scream in her sleep more often than not. Stannis always woke her up but he never knew how to comfort her. It was yet another of his failings as a husband. Sansa had relaxed after a few months but Stannis had never overcome the initial wariness.

Stannis had hoped that by marrying Sansa and tying his family to the Starks, he'd relieve the perceived slights against him. It hadn't worked.

He watches the lights of Storm's End. It is eleven o'clock. 

Stannis realizes he can't continue working, not in this state - thinking about work and Sansa, but mostly about Sansa. He stands and winces when his legs protest.

The building is quiet as he makes his way down the stairs. 

His aged Corolla is the only car left in the parking lot. Stannis breathes in the cool night air and glances up at the sky. He remembers the times his father took him and his brothers night fishing, back when Steffon was still alive. Stannis had loved hearing his father's stories of all the constellations above them, about the sailors that followed the stars to exotic lands, about the heroes who had stars named after them.

Stannis winds his way out out of the business sector, tuning the radio to some pop station in an attempt to keep awake through sheer irritation. He's relieved when the office buildings slowly morph into streets filled with cramped rows of houses. 

In the distance he can make out the estates of his childhood, the willow-lined streets of upper-class Westeros, but Stannis hasn't lived there for almost a year. Westeros is a larger town, large enough to warrant restaurant chains but not large enough to illicit recognition from anyone further than fifty miles in either direction. The old Westeros families like to pretend this isn't true. Stannis never felt wistful for the garden parties or the rigid social system of his old life.

He pulls into his driveway and parks, exhaustion making his temples throb. Stannis had bought his house with the first bit of money he made at Dragonstone. He'd bought it after he'd married Sansa, a few days after he'd realized he'd never work his way back into his family's good graces again and that no political marriage would change that. 

It's small, unremarkable, but well-maintained. The siding is freshly painted, the lawn as perfectly groomed as a push-mower could accomplish, the flowerbed in front of the house tiny but tidy. Stannis's house is the furthest thing from the sprawling Baratheon estate and Stannis is perversely proud of it.

When Stannis enters, he sees that Sansa is indeed curled up on the loveseat. She looks up from a talk show to smile faintly at him. Stannis takes off his shoes and coat, trying to ignore the feeling of her eyes on him.

She is beautiful like that, relaxed, with her hair free of its usual ponytail, her arms bare. Sansa's wearing a thin blue tank top instead of her usual sweater or long-sleeved shirt. Like this, he can make out the scars left behind by her ex-boyfriend. Cigarette burns and long, precise cuts inflicted with a pocket knife are concrete reminders of her past. They will never fade but they don't make her any less beautiful.

"I saved some leftovers for you in the fridge," Sansa says. "Shireen went to that new curry place with Devan, and I ate most of the pasta. You don't have to eat the zucchini, it was pretty terrible."

"I'm sure it was fine, Sansa," Stannis says. The words feel so awkward in his mouth and he half expects her to roll her eyes and sigh like Selyse would have.

Instead, Sansa chuckles and shifts over so that there's room for him next to her on the loveseat. "It's all right, I know I'm an awful cook." Sansa smiles at Stannis again and he looks away.

He joins her, and sits at the edge of the loveseat. "I . . . I'm sorry I was working late." He can smell something other than tea on her breath and it takes him a second to realize it's wine. She's been drinking.

The smile on Sansa's face turns wry. "Is it really 'working late' when you stay at the office until gods know when every single day? When does 'working late' become routine?" Again, there's no real accusation, just exhaustion.

Stannis can't answer her. He clenches his jaw automatically and by the wince on Sansa's face it doesn't go unnoticed.

She puts down her half-empty wine glass. "Stannis, I know this marriage wasn't what either of us wanted," she says, blunt, and the words are enough to surprise him into looking at her. "I know I'm hardly the perfect wife. I didn't exactly marry you in the best state of mind -" 

He tries to interrupt but Sansa holds up a hand and he stops. 

" - but I've been going to therapy, and I've gotten better. You've been -" she pauses here, struggling for the right words, and Stannis can see how difficult this is for her. "You've been kind to me. Don't try to deny it, it's the truth. You've been good to me. I understand that I don't . . . that we don't . . . exactly . . . " she falters, picks up the wine and takes a large gulp. Stannis could have sworn Sansa was blushing. 

They haven't slept together since their wedding night. It had been an unmitigated disaster. Stannis had been used to going months without sex when married to Selyse so it wasn't a great loss when he realized Sansa would probably never share her bed with him again.

"Anyway." Sansa swallows forcibly and meets his eyes again, resolve hardened. "The reasons that we got married don't . . . don't really apply anymore, not to me anyway. If you want to get a divorce, that's - that's understandable."

Her words feel like a punch to the throat. "You want to get divorced?"

"No - I just, I just figured you weren't happy. Here. With me."

He turns so he's facing her. Sansa's eyes are closed like she's waiting for a punch or a slap and he's surprised at how much that upsets him, the thought of someone hurting her. He shouldn't care so much but it bothers him anyway, especially when he knows he's the one hurting her emotionally at least. Stannis can see the scars on her bare arms in the shadowy light of the living room and he wants to kill Joffrey Lannister.

There had been an evening, about four months into their marriage, when Sansa had called him at the office for the first time. She was terrified, and rightly so - when Stannis had sped back to the house there'd been a slick black Corvette parked across from it. When he got out of his car the Corvette had sped away. 

Stannis had listened to the messages the little bastard had left on the voice mail and would have filed a police report had Sansa not pleaded for him to leave it alone. He'd stayed with her for the rest of the day, close but never pressing for information because he would have screwed up somehow if he'd asked her about it. 

Sansa had softened after that and Stannis wishes he'd - well, he isn't sure what he wishes he'd have done.

Eventually they'd settled into a routine. Stannis worked at Dragonstone, Sansa at a nearby elementary school as a teacher's assistant, both moving in separate rotations and coming together infrequently and only for a meal or the briefest conversation about the weather. Sometimes when he's sitting in his office he wonders what Sansa's doing, what she would think about a particular employee, how she's coping, if she and Shireen get along. He doesn't ask Sansa.

He tells himself it's better that way. He doubts Sansa really wants to spend time with him anyway. Now he isn't certain. Stannis is always certain; it's the only way he survives as the days go by. Absolute certainty. He doesn't know what to do with this newfound doubt.

"I'm . . . not unhappy," he admits, and Sansa's eyes are sharp on him. Focused, like she's paying attention to every word he's saying. It's not an expression he's familiar with and he has to struggle to find the next sentence. "I . . . I think about what life was like before the scandal. I thought I was happy then, working for the family business, and I'm not sure if I'm happy here, but I know - I know Shireen is happier now. I think I can be happy here." The word is foreign on his tongue - happy - but he can't stop now.

"Are you unhappy?" he asks, a few moments past awkward and into deeply uncomfortable.

Sansa's hands shake and she presses them together in her lap as if in supplication. "No, I'm not," she says, subdued.

"Are you unhappy?" he repeats, louder. Stannis has to know. 

Sansa shakes her head. "I like it here," she starts, "I really do. I think Shireen's starting to like me. I like the neighborhood. I like the house, I like how it's only a few minutes away from work. And - and I like you."

Out of all the things Sansa has said, this has been the most startling. For a second Stannis wants to believe it. He wants to tell her that it's entirely mutual, that he's grown to care for her over the past year. The words get stuck in his throat and her face falls slightly and he hates himself, truly, in that moment.

Stannis manages to choke out, "I'm not good with people. Especially - especially women."

"I know," she says, half-smile on her lips. Sansa reaches forward and tentatively, ever so cautiously, takes his hand. 

He can't remember the last time someone's held his hand. It's a strange sensation. Reflexively, his fingers tighten over hers. His chest aches and Sansa, thumb running over his, says, "After long enough, anyone would start second-guessing themselves."

"Don't," he says, roughly.

"Don't what?" 

"Second-guess yourself."

She kisses him then.

Sansa tastes like wine and her lips are soft under his. Stannis is nearly overtaken with panic - he hasn't shaved, he forgot to take a mint so his breath probably tastes like bad coffee, he's nearly bald and definitely not handsome, he's no good at this -

But she doesn't stop. Stannis feels his heart clench but it isn't exactly painful. If it is, it's the most delightful kind of painful he's felt in a while.

Sansa lets go of his hand. He stops, but the panic is unwarranted. She moves closer, breasts brushing against his chest. Her fingers brush over the small hairs at the base of his neck and her lips move against his, gentle but insistent, like she's proving a point to him. He nearly falters when he feels his growing arousal but Sansa bites his bottom lip and he can't stop.

He touches her hair and she holds him tighter, bodies pressed together, lips moving frantically. Sansa's hair is so soft, just a bit damp from an evening shower, and it smells like lemongrass and vanilla. Stannis realizes, fuzzily, that he could kiss her for quite a while if she'd let him.

They break apart eventually, breathing hard. Sansa's grinning and Stannis might be smiling. Sansa leans backwards, drawing him down with her with an insistent hand. Stannis brushes her hair again and gives it a little tug.

Sansa freezes instantly. Stannis launches himself off her and sees her terrified eyes.

The moment is gone. He hates himself for thinking he could have her.

Sansa buries her face in her hands and curls up, knees tucked against her body. She's shaking hard, and even though Stannis can't hear any sobs he knows she's crying.

He almost leaves her then, almost retreats to the bathroom where he can pretend it never happened. It would be easier, he thinks, but then he realizes that while it would be easier now it will only make things worse between them. And there is a 'them', Stannis knows, because Sansa had kissed him. He can't explain it away.

Stannis moves closer, not quite touching her. His stomach is lurching.

"Can I touch your shoulder? Is that all right?" he asks, voice low. Stannis thinks Sansa nods though it's hard to tell amongst the tremors. He puts a hand on her bare shoulder and shifts so that their sides are touching.

"I - I'm so sorry," he murmurs.

"N-n-not your fault," she says, voice almost inaudible.

Tentatively, Stannis runs his thumb over the ridges of bone on Sansa's shoulder. He can feel a small circle of scar tissue under his fingertip and he feels so angry he could scream.

"You know I'd kill them if I could. For what they've done to you." His own certainty surprises him.

Sansa's shakes are subsiding. She lets out a wet-sounding chuckle at Stannis's declaration. "Don't, please. It's not . . . they're not . . . they're not worth it."

They're quiet for a while, Stannis stroking her shoulder, Sansa's breaths evening out. He can see slices of the street outside through the half-closed blinds covering the living room window. He sweeps them away with a hand and Sansa raises her head. "Look at them. The stars, I mean. They're . . . they're something, right?"

She smiles again, a tiny smile but a smile nonetheless. "Yeah, they're pretty amazing," she says, eyes on the night sky while his are on her. 

Slowly, Sansa leans closer to Stannis until she's pressed against his side, and he tucks his arm around her hesitantly. Sansa doesn't look away from the stars but her smile is growing slowly, in almost invisible increments. 

Sansa rests her head on his shoulder and Stannis summons up all of his courage and kisses her hair.

"I'm sorry I'm kind of a fuck-up," she whispers. He can feel her smiling. Outside, the stars shine brightly.

"We both are. It's all right."

**Author's Note:**

> A/N on ages: Sansa is 23 and Stannis is 35. This work is part of a series of ficlets set in the same universe.


End file.
